The 8 Best Craft Beer Bars in Berlin

BRLO built a brewery and beer garden out of thirty-eight stacked shipping containers at Gleisdreieck, and it is the most ambitious craft operation in the city. The taps run from a clean Helles to a hopped-up Pale Ale and rotating experiments, with vegetables, not meat, leading the food. Order a flight and sit in the garden when the weather holds. Best on a warm weekday evening before the after-work rush.

Hopfenreich opened in Kreuzberg in 2014 as Berlin's first dedicated craft beer bar, and it still sets the standard. Around twenty rotating taps pull from Berlin brewers and beyond, with a wall of bottles behind. It is small, unpretentious and right by Schlesisches Tor. Tell the bartender what you like and work outward from there. Open to 2am daily, so it works late when the breweries have shut.

Hops & Barley turned a Friedrichshain butcher's shop into a brewpub in 2010, and the tiled walls give it away. The house lineup runs a Pilsner, a dark, a wheat and a cider, brewed on site and poured fresh, with homemade bread and local sausage to soak it up. It is cozy and loud with regulars. Best on a weeknight when you can get a table near the tanks.

Muted Horn is the Neukölln craft bar two Vancouverites built on Flughafenstrasse, with twenty-two rotating taps, two on nitro, and more than a hundred bottles to take away. No kitchen, so bring food, which suits the come-as-you-are crowd. Order a taster tray and sit with the board games. Best later in the evening when the room loosens up. A drinker's bar that knows exactly what it is.

Eschenbräu hides in a Wedding courtyard, a homebrewery and beer garden that seats around two hundred under oak trees when the weather allows. The brewer trained at the city's technical university and pours seasonal beers alongside a brown ale and lager, plus his own schnapps. You can bring your own food. Best on a summer afternoon from 3pm, when the garden opens and the fresh stuff is on.

Vagabund started as an American-founded homebrew project and now runs the Kesselhaus, a brewery and kitchen in a historic Wedding boiler house. Expect hop-forward ales and collaborations poured in a big industrial room with events most weeks. The old Antwerpener Strasse taproom has closed, so the Kesselhaus is the place to find them now. Best for a long sit with food and a couple of the seasonals.

Heidenpeters brews under the floor of Markthalle Neun in Kreuzberg and pours upstairs from fourteen taps, a market-hall bar that has run since 2012. The Helles and the IPA anchor a rotating board of seasonals, and Friday brings brewery tours in German and English. It keeps market hours, so this is a daytime and early-evening stop. Best paired with whatever the hall's food stalls are cooking that day.

Kaschk by BRLO mixes craft coffee, twelve beer taps and a basement shuffleboard court in Mitte, which makes it the most playful room on this list. The beer advice is sharp and the charcuterie is good, but the shuffleboard is the hook, so book a lane if you want one after 6pm. Best for a small group that wants something to do between rounds. Open from morning for the coffee.